ALEX SALMOND revealed yesterday that he has written to David Cameron urging him to stop his ministers “bullying” Scotland.

The First Minister said public comments made by senior Tories have broken the Edinburgh Agreement – the charter which laid out terms for the referendum on independence.

His letter was last night branded “pathetic” by No campaigners.

Salmond’s appeal comes two days after Chancellor George Osborne ruled out an independent Scotland having a currency union with the rest of the UK.

That was followed by a senior government source suggesting ministers might drag their heels in negotiating independence if Scotland votes Yes.

Salmond’s letter to the Prime Minister urges him to “distance himself” from what he described as “bullying”.

He said: “Failure to do so will be interpreted, at best, as complicity, and, at worst, endorsement of this deeply anti- democratic position.

“We remember how Scotland reacted to the poll tax, and we have seen the groundswell of reaction to the arrogance we have seen in the past week.

“I am calling on them to cease and desist.”

SNP MSP Bruce Crawford, convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Referendum Bill committee, said: “Two polls have shown that Westminster’s attempts at bullying on the pound have simply moved more people towards voting Yes. When people in ­Scotland hear that Westminster is willing to ignore their democratic vote, even more will be convinced of the need for independence.

“The interventions from the Tories and their Labour and Lib Dem helpers are even more bewildering, coming on the back of David Cameron’s call for the rest of the UK to ‘lovebomb’ people in Scotland.

“When it comes to Scotland it seems that the Westminster elite has only two settings – patronising or bullying.”

But a Better Together ridiculed the SNP saying: “Just when you thought Salmond had no more toys left to chuck out the pram, he goes and proves us wrong. This is absolutely pathetic stuff.”

The new row comes as Salmond prepares to attack Osborne’s rejection of a currency union with an independent Scotland. Backed by the advice of the Treasury’s most senior civil servant, he said on Thursday that it would be far too risky to ask the rest of the UK to underwrite an independent Scotland.

Salmond will talk in Aberdeen tomorrow when, he says, he will reject the Chancellor’s “ill- thought-out and misinformed” speech. He accuses the Chancellor of bluffing and says everything would change if Scots vote Yes in September.

And he plans to spell out why a currency union is in the interests of the UK and to call on Osborne to “wake up” to the fact that he cannot lay claim to assets such as the Bank of England and the pound and expect an independent Scotland to meet its share of UK debt.

Ahead of his speech to a Business for Scotland audience, the SNP leader said: “The Chancellor will have to explain exactly why he favours imposing almost £500million of higher transaction costs on UK businesses instead of entering a perfectly feasible Sterling area with the rest of the UK’s second biggest trading partner.”

Osborne, whose position was backed by Labour’s Ed Balls and Lib Dem Danny Alexander, said extra costs on business would be around £240million, a price worth paying to avoid the instability and risk of a currency union.

And Unionists were last night piling pressure on the SNP to reveal a Plan B now their economic plan for a currency union has been rejected by all three main ­Westminster parties.

Former chancellor Alistair Darling, who leads Better Together, challenged him to reveal his fall-back position.

He said: “Alex Salmond is a man without a plan. The nationalists have been divided since it was made clear that Scotland could not leave the UK and at the same time keep the pound. They can’t even agree between themselves on this most fundamental issue.The authors of the SNP’s currency plan are now disagreeing over what Plan B is .”

Scottish Conservative enterprise spokesman Murdo Fraser said of Salmond: “Here is a man fighting yesterday’s battles, everyone else has moved on from this currency union plan, even members of his own campaign.”

Opponents have also claimed that Salmond’s threat to default on debt if Scotland didn’t get to keep the pound would put millions of ­pensions at risk and ruin Scotland’s international reputation on money markets.

Labour’s Shadow Pensions Minister Gregg McClymont said: “The idea that Alex Salmond can walk away from our debt obligations to the rest of the UK without consequences for Scots and their pensions is fantasy.”